Minelab E-TRAC Forum

Ok, I have decided to give the Fast - On, Deep - Off Recovery settings a try and see if I notice any appreciable difference in my finds in the high trash areas I have been hunting. Everyone seems to have their own preferences and it seems that most that have been hunting public parks and schools have come to the conclusion that these settings work best. Up to this point, still an E-Trac newbie, I have been using Deep - ON, FAST - OFF and feel that I have been at least somewhat successful.

I haven't had any shortage of targets mixed in with rusty nails or sitting on top or adjacent to a NULL. Yesterday, I stopped by a place I have been hunting frequently the last couple months and decided to see if I could squeeze out another coin or two. I was getting skunked for anything old and running out of time and finally found a deep target reading 9/37 9/38 and was at the very bottom of my meter. From the depths came a 1923 wheatie. So, I am finding deep stuff. The question is, are my settings causing me to miss additional targets? How do I know if I am missing them if I don't even know they are there?

Any thoughts from you other users out there are appreciated. I will let you know how I do.

I try to limit the amount of filters I have on and let the processor do it's work ....The E Trac already recovers pretty fast for a Minelab ....I will hut with Deep "On" and leave the rest alone and add a +3 to my sensitivity if I know there are deep targets ..... I will slow my swing down, and a smaller coil doesn't hurt either if there is a lot of trash ..... Less nulling and much better seperation, and the sensitivity can be raised higher too ..... More surgical so to speak .....Jim

That's a nice descripiton of the deep wheat you got, man it's always great to see that depth meter pegged, rarely happens for me. So, the next time you get one of those targets, mark the spot and then start tinkering with your settings to see what the effects (if any) on the audio response and digital readouts are. Depending on the amount of discrimination you are running with, you may also experiment with different patterns, which can make signals sound better/worse, depending. Testing different settings on undug targets is the best objective way to figure out what works best in your area and soil type. Also experiment with swing speed and angles over the same undug targets. It pays to take notes too, as an hour later you will be saying "Hmmm.... I forget if DEEP ON or OFF sounded better on that deep wheatie...." Good luck out there. - Jim

PS - I prefer DEEP OFF AND FAST OFF in the turf parks I hunt. Signals on deep coins are fuller, less 'chopped'.

For trashy areas, and I mean the kind where each swing sounds like a machine gun (of low tones and or nulling) through the headphones I'll use fast on. After trying both fast on and off in these areas I have noticed that fast on does get more good targets.

As for deep on, last week I did some air tests on some coins and noticed that it gave me about 1/2" to 1" more reach. I don't know if that will be the same in the ground though. Until now I always thought deep on messed with the tones and readings so I didn't use it. But for an inch more depth I think I'm going to try it if the site warrants it's use.

Rich, I hunt with both off. I have tried all the combinations and I never noticed too much difference. When hunting places with little trash, I will use fast off and deep on. I agree with Bryce's theory of "what works for you". Here is another question. I have used the Etrac for the entire spring season and I have yet to noise cancel the detector. I have used Explorers since they came out and the only time I ever noise cancelled was if I experienced any sort of emi. I dig many DEEP coins and people on other forums have commented that I am wrong by not cancelling. Thousands of hours on these detectors. Maybe I am wrong to not cancel, but I would be very interested in how many of the people with years of experience with any Explorer actually noise cancel every time they fire up their detector. R.L.

I appreciate the posts and hearing back from all of you. I have a parallel post on the Explorer Forum next door that has had some feedback as well.

I originally came up the what I am currently using on my E-Trac with my old Explorer XS by going over a couple deep targets and seeing what they sounded like with changing the FAST and DEEP settings. I did not like the sound of having them both on at the same time and ended up using DEEP - ON, FAST - OFF for nearly 10 years.

When I picked up my E-Trac, I also picked up a copy of Andy Sabishs' most recent book on the Explorer / E-Trac's and took some of the E-Trac specific settings from there as well as from suggestion from some of the experienced hunters on the forum.

I think I will postpone the Fast - ON, Deep - OFF for a bit. Had some feedback that I should really consider hunting with both of them OFF. I am going to give that a try for a few months and also tweak my audio gain up a wee bit. I do want to audibly be able to tell depth a bit by volume and don't want to jack the gain to the max. I have an old pair of KOSS headphones that are VERY loud with all of my detectors and I don't think that I am missing any deep signals due to lack of volume.

I am a big fan of leaving most of my settings alone after finding what works for me. The only thing that I adjust everytime out is the sensitivity. I try to keep it in the low to mid- 20's, I will bump it up until things get a little erratic and then drop until things smooth out. Sometimes I am WAY above the 'suggested' setting, other times close. I will usually do a Noise Cancel when I am at a site as well.

I do have an exception to this. A couple areas have really produced well and I inadvertently noticed that the Noise Cancel setting was the same at each place respectively. So when I hunt these two areas, I manually set the channel to the particular setting that worked. I ought to take this one step further and see if it makes a difference to change channels when I am over a deep target. Right now, it feels more like wearing a lucky Harley shirt or something when I hunt. Also, I leave the cell phone in the car or turn it off if I feel like I need to have it with me.

This is a great thread and continues a subject which has been touched on before.

It's just theory on my part at the moment but as has been suggested, removing as much additional filtering as possible can only be a good thing when trying to remove extra processing.
In my mind this can only speed things up.
I have now decided on DEEP OFF, FAST ON and VOLUME GAIN 30. This removes the additional filtering the DEEP ON uses to enhance fainter, deeper signals. The increase in Volume Gain to 30 enhances those deep signals without this filtering.
Similarly, by switching FAST ON, the ETrac switches off additional filtering it uses to stabilise fluctuating target ID's. As in 2 tone Ferrous mode, hunt by high tone only.

The most important setting in my mind Rich is to remove any black you have at the bottom of the screen......remove it completely!!
If you have black at the bottom, the ETrac will null out over iron and have to recover which is what we want to avoid. Let the ETrac give you a low tone instead of a null.
That way it doesn't have to recover........one Turbo Charged Etrac!!!

I'd say if you aren't experiencing erratic/jumpy behavior of your target ID, along with lots of chattering tones when you're not swinging your coil, then noise cancel will have no effect on your ability to hear deep targets because EMI is not affecting you. Location is everything when it comes to EMI. Where I hunt (urban city parks), EMI is ever present. In fact, there's parks I know I will have to change channels on my machine to get it to quiet down.multiple times throughout the day. Also, if I'm hunting with a few of my Explorer buddies, I will have to change channels when I get close to them. Seems like I get more crosstalk with my friend's XS than any other Explorer.

I think this is another one of the big misunderstandings about the Explorers; that you need to noise cancel to deal with ground conditions. Nope. It's all EMI. There are times when I'm detecting in the city and can only run at mid upper teens that I will try a noise cancel. Sometimes will allow me to bump the sens up 1 or 2 but seldom much of a big difference, and maybe a few feet farther down the line it gets twitchy again. I think that 99% of the EMI we deal with is from power lines and the noise generated is fairly broadband; shifting the transmit frequency by a small amount isn't going to make much difference.

As far as fast and deep. I've had both on or off, sometimes for a year or more at a time; don't think it makes a huge difference.

I know you're a big fan of the 2-Tone, Ferrous, All Metal setup on your machine, and have been very successful hunting this way in your areas.

The only way to hunt with a wide open screen is in Ferrous sounds, IMHO....no way can you do this in Conductive (iron is high toned in Conduct). I'm sure you knew this, and were suggesting that Rich hunt in Ferrous, wide open, to receive low tones on iron targets. Where I hunt, there are many, many more aluminum targets in the ground then there are iron targets (typical urban park environment). In addition, my areas have above average ground mineralization, which causes the Ferrous reading on the target ID to jump/skew/bounce much more on deep targets than Conduct readings do. For me, hunting in Ferrous is futile. Here in California, I can only name a few Explorer/E-Trac guys (out of a hundred), that still use Ferrous sounds, All metal while hunting urban parks. Conductive with a little bit of iron masking is preferred by the majority for hunting these conditions. I'm going to be sacrificing a little bit of recovery time by nulling on iron, but I have accepted that as a trade-off for better identification of the real deepies in my hunting areas.

Gaz,
I was reading your settings and while I somewhat like the idea of openning up the pattern as not to "null" the iron and such to allow the E Trac to work easier , but I think that the "deep on" setting actually allows signals that you would not normally hear to be heard ....I don't think that it is a matter of volume only that you could find the deeper targets by adding more volume .... In other words , I think that deep on is a processing function that brings the target into play that is normally not even heard ....It's not something as simple as a volume boost to bring it into play ..... Please keep in mind that I am just using my own thoughts here ....I have no proof that what I am saying is true, but I have turned "deep on' to " deep off" on some deep targets , and have turned the volume up , and deep on is what made the difference , not the volume or gain of the signal .... .....If you have nothing in the ground to hear, and you turn up the volume , you hear a louder background noise .....If you have a target that is there , and it needs to be brought to the forefront through processing and not volume, it will be heard at the same volume .....This is how I understand the "deep on " signal ....... Again, just my thoughts, and my hypothesis from what I have learned with deep targets and the E Trac ... I hunted with a guy with an E Trac when I was using my Safari .....He would come up on signals that he could only hear with " deep on" with his E Trac ....He would call me over to check the target , and I would not be able to hear the target at all !!!.....Between the deep on, and the other filtering and processing of the E Trac is what enticed me to buy the E Trac ....I haven't looked back !!!... ....Jim

its fun to read what every one uses and thinks. it really cant hurt to have these topics spring up. even being a seasoned etrac user i always read and im sure the new users can learn from this type of level headed discussion on settings.
i feel that being able to talk and not argue is one of the fine points of this forum.

now that doesnt mean i run those setting all the time. if i do change things i may only change from conductive to ferrous and change my pattern. or i go to auto sense.
to much changing around of settings can throw you off on a hunt.
iv kinda got my 2 or 3 modes i stick with.
thats a great thing about the etrac it can be as many detectors as you want it to be or need all in one.

"thats a great thing about the etrac it can be as many detectors as you want it to be or need all in one."

This was one of the many reasons I went for the E Trac ..... You can hunt just about anything other than going into the water with it ......The E Trac and a water machine is a pretty good setup to own ...It covers it all ..... Black sand can even be handled and as a beach machine the E Trac is DEEEEEEEEEEEP !!.....Good all around machine ....Jim